CLICK THE PAGE ABOVE IN THE MENU BAR TO VIEW THE PRIZE LIST FOR THE FIVE MINUTE FRIDAY PHOTO CONTEST

I often hear from people that they just don’t see that many people bicycling. I typically respond that for my work I spend time in most every neighborhood in Milwaukee and that it usually does not take more than five minutes for me to see a person riding a bike, no matter where I am in the City. That gave me the idea to create a catalog of photographs of people I see riding bikes in five-minute periods.

So each week on Fridays, I will try to post photographs of people riding bikes. The photographs will all be taken of just those bicyclists seen in a five-minute period. I thought it might be fun to make this into a contest for readers of this blog. I will have three categories for the contest:

I hope this little experiment will illustrate the diversity of people in Milwaukee (and elsewhere) riding bicycles. If anyone else wants to try this, let me know and send me your photos. The only rules for the contest will be as follows:

1. all the photos must be taken in a five-minute period.

2. The photos can be taken from different locations within that five-minute period. .

3. There must be at least be more than one person in the photograph(s)

There will be as many random drawings in each category as I have schwag to give out. Anyone who submits qualifying photos will be entered in a random drawing for the prizes. To get people going, here are my first Five Minute Photos:

I am deeply disappointed to see that an employee of the City of Milwaukee endorses not wearing helmets. This is hardly appropriate for someone who is accountable to the public. I am a cyclist who endures the supposed suffering of helmet-wearing for my own welfare and out of consideration for all who would need to bear the burden of my care in case of the brain injury that would likely result from an accident in which i wasn’t wearing a helmet.

First, I clearly state that this is a PERSONAL blog. I do not represent the City of Milwaukee here although I am an employee of the City.

Second, wearing a helmet is a personal choice. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I don’t advocate that people wear them or don’t wear them. I do advocate that people ride bikes. The more people who ride bikes the better, whether they wear helmets or not. I will discuss the whole issue about wearing helmets in a later post. It is a bigger issue than I can respond to in a reply to comment. But I will say a couple things about it here. The safest places in the world to ride a bike are the places where people wear helmets the least. In Amsterdam and Copenhagen virtually nobody wears a helmet and about 50% of all trips are made by bike.

I believe that the “helmets first” advocacy campaigns do more to construct an unjustified culture of fear about cycling than they do to encourage people to ride bikes. What if every time a car company advertised their cars, they added a statement that said “Wear your seatbelt and begin an excercise program after purchasing this car. Driving cars is very dangerous and contributes to obesity and diabetes.” Or what if every time someone we knew was about to drive a car we warned “Remember to excercise after driving or you might get fat.”

I want to sell bicyling and one of the selling points is that bicycling is very safe. Typically we have 0 or 1 fatal crash involving a bicycle in Milwaukee in a year, and usually that person was riding at night without a light, riding against traffic or failed to stop before riding out into traffic. Another selling point is the health benefit. If people ride less because they don’t want to wear a helmet or think cycling is unsafe, then the benefits of wearing a helmet are offset by less riding.

I have also had people admonish me for promoting the idea the women should be able to ride bikes in heels, open toed shoes or sandals. Some people have suggested that is very unsafe and inappropriate.

I always wear a helmet, but sometimes I feel like I am doing it to avoid the insufferable folks who make comments like the one above. In my youth, my primary means of transport was the bicycle, as it was for many of my friends. For all of our foolishness and resulting injuries/hospitalization, not one involved the head. Helmets are good, and helmets are wise, but they are not the be-all end-all. They often move people into more dangerous cars, where they are even more likely to die of head injuries than on a bike.

Need more info? Read “The Cyclist’s Manifesto” by bike messenger Robert Hurst. He always wears a helmet, too, but he lays out the facts that make comments like the one above so counterproductive and detrimental to the cycling movement. And it is all footnoted and documented.